The embodiments herein relate generally to coupling systems and devices for securing a plurality of plastic bottles together.
There is a tremendous amount of plastic waste in our landfills and waterways caused by empty single-serve water bottles and the bottle caps used to close them. In keeping with the principles of the Circular Economy, one way to reduce this plastic waste is to re-use empty single-serve, capped water bottles, preferably in their existing form for another purpose. For example, these empty capped single-serve bottles can be reused to construct structures for building insulation, simple structures like a bottle greenhouse, or other structures such as tables, shelves, and the like.
One way to accomplish this is to couple a plurality of capped bottles together utilizing a coupling system where the base of each bottle comprises a recess as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 7,644,828. The bottle cap and recess in the base share a common diameter so a connection can be achieved when the neck of a first bottle is inserted into the corresponding base recess of another bottle. There exist other bottle/containers in the field that have a blow molded recess in the base that can be used for loosely stacking the bottles/containers on top of each other such as Sidel's Stack and Pack System. However, this stacking feature is for storage purposes to stack the bottles on a pallet without the use of cardboard interlayers.
These bottle coupling systems are impractical for certain applications because they have a limited connection strength due to the loose stacking of bottles or sole reliance on a frictional grip between the cap of a bottle and recess of another bottle. Further, the frictional grip securement method of current bottle coupling systems between bottle caps and corresponding recesses in the bottle bases has fixed limits, based particularly on the diameter of the cap and the diameter of the recess. The limitation occurs when the diameter of the cap exceeds the diameter of the recess, and the coupling cannot be accomplished.
Other container/structural element coupling systems exist as disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,374,917 and 7,175,498, which use male and female members to create frictional grip connections between containers or structural elements. Although these devices fulfill their objectives and requirements, there exists a continuing need for new and improved, non-obvious, connecting features that have the ability to enhance the connection strength and stability.
As such, there is a need in the industry for a container/bottle mounting system and apparatus to secure a plurality of bottles or containers together that addresses the limitations of the prior art. Specifically, there is a need for the mounting system and apparatus to secure empty plastic bottles or containers together with an enhanced connection strength and stability via a frictional grip and vacuum seal connection. There is a further need for the mounting system and apparatus to improve the connectivity of bottle cap to bottle recess frictional connections beyond its fixed limitation.